Altered Paths
by Tmae3114
Summary: In one universe, a young boy picks up an orb of pure darkness, says no and walks away, later to become of of Lore's greatest warriors of light, and a young girl cannot resist temptation, picks up that orb and spends years in the darkness. In another universe, things go a little bit...differently
1. Part 1 - Artix

**PART 1 - Artix**

_Sometimes, Artix gets really tired of running._

* * *

><p>It is not sunrise or sunset, or dawn or dusk, or any such poetic time when the cloaked figure arrives in Falconreach. It is, in fact, noon and the sun is high in the sky and the traveller is hardly the first or last to arrive. It is, essentially, the beginning of rush hour.<p>

The cloak is big and heavy and covers and disguises every part of the person's body, casting their face entirely into shadow.

Guardian Jenni is, of course, completely unfazed by the admittedly impressive figure the stranger cut. Sure they looked pretty intimidating but this is Falconreach and she is a guardian. They got more than their fair share of odd or unusual travellers passing through.

"Hail, stranger!" she calls, the long used greeting easy enough to use.

The cloaked figure, who had been looking up at the walls surrounding the town, almost seems to start at being addressed.

"…hello," the answer is barely a mumble and the voice hard to make out.

"Welcome to Falconreach, the town connected to all of Lore!"

"I…uh…thank you,"

"You ever been here before?" a minute shake visible through the shuffle of fabric "Well, since you're new in town, try talking to Twilly – he's the red moglin who hangs about in the centre of town – he likes to help out,"

No reply, but the stranger hasn't moved. Her co-worker looks over and seems to pick up on something, before calling over.

"Hey! You with that over cloaked guy that showed up? 'Cause if you're looking for him, he went away up that way," the other guardian gestures towards the path leading up and around the wall "hangs around in a clearing over there,"

The stranger seems uneasy now.

"Other cloaked guy?"

"A stranger who showed up a while ago," Jenni says. "Always cloaked, never really seems to move, just hangs around in that clearing offering to sell stuff,"

"Oh. No, I…I am not with him, I do not think. I am just passing through," the voice sounds clearer now, and if Jenni had to guess she'd say the cloaked stranger is a young man, but this is Lore and to make a guess on a stranger's identity almost always ends badly.

"You might not be passing through," she jests, leaning on her sword and grinning "The people in Falconreach're from all over. People tend to come to visit and end up never leaving. Who knows, you could be one of our new citizens in a week or so!"

That seems to make the masked figure laugh.

"No, I do not think so," the stranger reaches up to his hood and pulls it back, revealing a head of deep brown hair and eyes of the same, an almost genuine smile tugging at his lips. (But Jenni is a guardian and can see the sadness to it, can hear it in his words when he speaks them next)

"I have been travelling for a long while; I do not think I will be settling down any time soon,"

"You never know," she says, holding out a hand. "Welcome, again, to Falconreach. I'm Guardian Jenni, enjoy your stay,"

"Artix von Krieger," he says, returning the gesture and giving a firm shake. "I will endeavour to do so,"

As he steps through the gate, cloak hiding his entire body and keeping a secret he has kept for a long, long time safe, Artix looks up at the clear blue of the sky, hears the birds singing and the people of the town talking and laughing and all around feels _good._

'The town connected to all of Lore', huh? It is a beautiful place, and if circumstances were different, he thinks he would like to live here.

No, he will not stay long. He decides it there and then. Falconreach is beautiful and just feels like a nice place, he will stay an even shorter time than he would normally.

He does not want to see Falconreach go the same way as the other places he stayed in for too long.

* * *

><p><em>The whistle of a blade through the air and then…<em>

_THUNK!_

_A log split cleanly down the middle fell to the ground, followed only moments after by another, the repeated whistle-THUNK-whistle-THUNK the only sound beyond the chirping of distant birds._

_And then that sound ended too, as the young boy holding the axe rested for a moment, wiping his brow. He replaced the log, lifted the axe again and…_

_"HELP! Someone, please, help me! Brother…!"_

_The axe slammed into the side of the wood next to the log. The boy's head snapped up, turning towards where the cry had come from._

_"That is coming from the river!" he realised, pulling the axe free and turning to run._

_"I AM COMING!"_

_The boy almost froze when he reached the river bank, eyes locking on to the girl in the middle of the river, clinging tightly to a rock and trying not to be swept away by the current._

_"Try to hold on, I will go get help!" he called across. Her eyes snapped up to him for a moment, arms tightening around the rock but slipping ever so slowly._

_"Help! I can't hold on! Please, help me!"_

_The boy faltered for a moment, torn between running for help and simply helping. Town was not so far but…by the time he returned, there would be no-one to help. His decision was made._

_Feet planted as firmly as he could manage, he reached out and tried to grab her hand._

_But his grip was not sure enough, and he slipped. Darkness met him the moment he hit the water, the girl just barely managing to find and cling to his hand before the water swept them both away._

* * *

><p>Somehow, before he even knew it, two weeks had passed. Honestly, he could see what Jenni meant when she said that people visited and ended up never leaving.<p>

Falconreach was…, well, it was Falconreach and he could not think of a better way to put it. It just had a good _atmosphere_ to it.

Artix felt more at home than he had in years.

It was _terrifying._

Just the day before, he had caught himself toying with the idea of never leaving. He _liked_ Falconreach, he was friendly with the citizens, what harm could it do to settle down here? He could find a house, or talk to Serenity about permanently renting a room, give Ash some help with his training to someday become a knight. He could stop by Yulgar's forge to chat with him and Konnan and could see about learning about pets from Grams and play with Aria. What harm could it honestly do to finally stop running?

All the harm in the world. That's what it could do.

With a final heave, he pulled the bed into place and looked at his handiwork. He had propped the chair up under the door handle, preventing anyone from entering. Putting the bed in front of the chair to reinforce the barricade was simply a safety measure.

Turning around to put his back to the door, Artix took a deep breath and then reach up and undid his cloak. It fell to the floor with a thump, settling heavily.

He stepped forwards out of the pool of fabric it had made, and then curled his hands around the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over, curling around his forearms. He kept his eyes shut throughout it, and then felt the feeling of blood rushing to a body part that had been asleep.

He opened his eyes, stared straight into the mirror that hung on the wall beside the wardrobe and let his wings unfurl.

* * *

><p><em>The light to show the way out was just ahead of them and he strode ahead without falter. He had promised to get her home to her brother as soon as possible, and could not delay on that at all.<em>

_"Artix?" Vayle's voice was small. "Are you sure that it's safe to leave it there?"_

_"What?" he turned around to face her. "What do you mean?"_

_"That…that orb thing. The one you said was dangerous," she said, looking back over her shoulder to where the blue glow still emanated from the ruins of the old guardian tower. "If it's powerful…is it safe to leave it there, where anyone could find it? Shouldn't we take it back with us to see if the adults know what to do?"_

_He closed his eyes and thought about it. That orb was…_dark_ was the only word for it, and it's whispers still seemed to echo around his mind. Whispers of power if he accepted it…no. he would not listen to the orb. He would become a force of good, he was sure of it. Perhaps he would seek out training in a class that used light?_

_But Vayle was right, it was dangerous and powerful and with all of the kinds of things that had begun prowling the woods lately, leaving it there would not be safe._

_"You are right," he said, opening his eyes and exhaling. "Wait here, I will go and get it,"_

_He handed the axe to her, in case of any monsters arriving, and headed back into the tower._

* * *

><p>He stared into the mirror, at the draconic appendages that curled up to the halfway up the height of his head and halfway down the length of his upper arms, black in their colour entirely but for a faint hint of gold towards their tips.<p>

These were his reminder. His warning.

He could never stop anywhere too long, or they would find him. _He_ would find him, and drag him kicking and screaming back to the Necropolis to be used as nothing more than a _power source._ The undead would come marching through, bringing death and destruction in their wake and stopping at nothing until they grabbed him. The screams and shrieks that only he could hear would fill the air.

He forced himself to remember the times he had stopped too long before. To remember the towns and villages that had fallen to undead assaults coming fo _him_ because he had stayed too long.

He wanted to help the undead that had been enslaved, to free them, but he had to keep running. He freed the ones he could, but it would be pointless if he was caught.

Because then Noxus would get the power he wanted and would build an army and Artix would be unable to stop him.

He stared at the wings that were the reminder of his foolishness as a child – a girl's voice that he tried to block out rang in his mind as he thought of the day he gained them – and then nodded his head, resolute.

He would leave the next day. He would not risk endangering Falconreach.

* * *

><p><em>The orb sat where he and Vayle had left it, looking deceivingly innocent.<em>

_He crouched down and picked it up._

_The air felt like it had burst out of his lungs the moment that his fingers brushed the surface. The world around him went dark and the whispers were surrounding him but…NO! He would NOT give in. He WOULD NOT!_

_The darkness disappeared and the tower returned, and no time at all seemed to have passed. Something on his back was itching like crazy…he reached behind himself to try and reach the scratch almost absentmindedly and stopped short when he hit something sticking out of it. Something sticking out of a tear in his shirt._

_Something seemed to drop into the pit of his stomach when he remembered a certain new addition to Vayle after she had touched the orb. _Wings.

_He stood back up, almost shakily, and noticed that the orb was gone._

_No…not gone. Not visible, but not gone. But where?_

_"I guess this makes both of us," he said to Vayle when he left the tower. She had gasped, but hadn't asked further. She'd gotten a pair from the orb after all, so she couldn't question his._

_"What about the orb?" she asked._

_"It disappeared as soon as I touched it. I do not think we will be bringing it back with us," he said._

_They headed home. He never took the axe back._

* * *

><p>The sun was as bright and shining as it had been when he arrived when he left. His cloak was on and he could feel his wings shifting beneath it and thought – not for the first time- how glad he was that the cloak was heavy and thick enough to hide such movements.<p>

"Do you _have_ to go?" Ash asked, looking barely moments away from pouting.

Hood down, Artix laughed.

"Do not worry, I will come and visit again someday," he reassured the younger.

Then he pulled his hood up over his head, turned and left.

The very next day, a frantic adventurer would come barrelling through looking for Twilly and talking about a dragon box.

A week later, a paladin would arrive.

* * *

><p><strong>This story came about because of seeing an imagine-dragonfable post about Artix being bearer of the darkness orb instead of Vayle within a few days of completing the Doomwood Saga in AQW. And also because I <em>really<em> wanted to write this AU.**


	2. Part 2 - Vayle

**PART 2 - Vayle**

_Vayle has been chasing a ghost for years. This one just isn't the kind that a paladin would usually chase._

* * *

><p>Falconreach is in chaos when the paladin arrives. Undead swarm the town and people are fighting them tirelessly. Despite having only just arrived after days of travel, it takes all of three seconds for the paladin to join the fray.<p>

Cape fluttering outwards, axe moving with a precision grown only of years worth of practice and experience, every swing and step looking more like a dance than the rush of battle, the paladin strikes down undead after undead, each of these strikes carefully manoeuvred to take out as many as possible while expending the least energy.

It appears that the paladin has arrived on the tail end of the invasion, however, as it is not long before the undead have all fallen or retreated and the people finally have the chance to stop a breath. There is an almost suffocating feeling in the air that only some of them seem to be picking up on but which could not stand out to the paladin more if it was glowing as a star with a thousand aflame arrows pointing to its source.

Her head snaps up, her eyes spot the distant flash of red armour as the Doomknight leaves, her grip tightens on her axe and a flash of what might be fear darts through her gut.

She sincerely hopes that Sepulchure's presence does not coincide with her reasons for coming to Falconreach the way she thinks it does.

"That was some good fighting out there," a voice compliments and she turns to look at the guardian that has come up beside her, now leaning heavily on her sword.

"Years of practice, nothing more," she assures, shifting the grip on her own weapon to allow it to droop to the ground.

"Still impressive," the guardian says, holding out a hand. "Guardian Jenni. You are?"

"Vayle," she replies, shaking the offered hand with a smile.

Jenni smiles.

"Nice to meet you, Vayle. What brings you to Falconreach?"

"Oh, you know," she says, gesturing vaguely with her free hand. "The same sort of thing that has paladins travelling pretty much anywhere,"

"Oh?" Jenni asks.

"I suppose you could say that…" her free hand drops to the pouch strapped to her hip, enchanted with the same magic all basic adventurer's bags are. It slips in and brushes against old and chipped but polished metal, curls around an aged, wooden handle, and a surge of determination goes through her heart as it always does, she closes her eyes and inhales deeply.

She opens them again and meets Jenni's curious gaze.

"…I'm chasing a ghost,"

* * *

><p><em>The water was dark and scary and churning and trying so, so hard to pull them apart, but she held on as tightly as she could. He'd fallen in because he'd been trying to help her and she was not going to let the river pull them apart because he'd gone limp the moment he hit the water and everything was the wrong way up and spinning but if she let go he would drown and she was not letting him drown even if they both might drown now…<em>

_A dull THUNK echoed in the water and her eyes flew open as the air shot out of her lungs and she watched the bubbles float upwards, back aching from collision with a rock and then a sharp tug in her stomach as gravity took hold. And then they were falling. The water was white and churning and then…_

_SPLASH!_

_She adjusted her grip on him so that she was holding his upper arm, a better grip that his hand, and _kicked_. She broke the surface spluttering and coughing and pulled him up after her. Then she rolled over so that she was on her back and kicked until she felt herself make contact with something solid. She heaved the boy up onto the rocky ground of the cave they were now in – though where the strength to do all of this was coming from, she had _no_ idea – and scrambled up herself._

_Then, alone but for an unconscious stranger and the roaring of a waterfall in the background, she buried her face in her hands, hugged a knee close to her chest and _sobbed.

_A wet, hacking cough and a splash as water expelled itself onto rock._

_"Uhhh. What a ride… Note to self…. next time, use a tree branch to reach the person in the river,"_

_A deep intake of breath through a nose clogged from crying.  
>"You're alive!?"<em>

_"I… think so. How can I tell?"_

_An almost broken giggle.  
>"Yeah, you're…" a break for a hiccupping sob "…alive,"<em>

_"Ow, my head… Where are we?"_

* * *

><p>Arms tentatively lowered from a face, green eyes puffy from crying peering out.<p>

"I… don't know,"

Falconreach was an incredible place. It really was.

Barely two hours after the undead invasion had finished and already everyone had chipped in together, adventurer and non-adventurer alike, to clean the town up and repair the damage. Had she not seen the battle herself, she would have doubted it happened.

But now that job was over and people were beginning to return to their homes or to the inn, chatting happily among friends and returning to everyday life as though they had not just defeated an entire army of undead warriors.

A _really _incredible place.

_It's fortunate_ she mused _that the people of Falconreach are so resilient. Or, maybe they're just used to this._

"Welcome to the Falconreach Inn!" the innkeeper greeted cheerfully. "Can I interest you in a room, or perhaps some free bread?"

"A room for the night would be lovely," Vayle replied, giving a small smile. "But I was hoping you could help me with something else at the moment…"

* * *

><p><em>"This looks like…the old Guardian Tower. We should not be here!" Artix said, looking at his surroundings, before his eyes flickered back to her and just over her shoulders, widening slightly. "Are you alright?<em> _What… what happened to you?"_

_"I'm fine…I think. I just touched that orb…" though there was a strong itching sensation on her back and a feeling of something new at the back of her mind…_

_Artix knelt down and looked at the orb, frowning slightly as he watched it. Then he reached forwards and picked it up. For a moment, the room seemed to grow very, very dark and something seemed to creep from the orb and across his hands…_

_And then he inhaled sharply, closed his eyes, shook his head and put it back down._

_"I am leaving, Vayle," he said, looking around the surroundings again as he stood. "This is a bad place and we should NOT be here. Come on,"_

_He turned and started to walk away. She watched for a moment, before her eyes were drawn to the orb again. _

_Slowly, her hand started to reach out for it…_

_…and a hand caught her wrist, moments before her fingers brushed the surface of the orb._

_"Vayle," Artix said, sounding almost pleading. "We must go,"_

_And whether it was the pleading tone or the almost desperation for her to listen or the fact that he looked and sounded almost scared, when so far he had been nothing but brave and confident in getting them home safely, she didn't know._

_But she listened. She pulled her hand back through his grip so that he was holding her hand rather than her wrist and let him pull her to her feet._

_They left the room together, leaving the orb laying on the floor._

* * *

><p>It was with a familiar weight in her heart and on her shoulders than Vayle slumped down on a chair near the fireplace of the inn, barely hearing the sounds of chatter around her. She propped her axe up against the table, planted her elbows firmly on the wood and dropped her face into her hands. Then she rapidly pulled it back up, grimacing, pulled off her gauntlets and repeated the action.<p>

Too late. Too late _again._

This seemed to happen everywhere she went. A rumour of a heavily cloaked figure here, a glimpse of a winged young man there; stories of a mysterious young man running from necromancers –_ "a paladin do you think?" "No, of course not, don't be ridiculous, paladins _fight_ necromancers, they don't run from them" "well why else would they be chasing him?" (he would have made a good paladin, she thinks) – _or of undead invasions that arrive shortly after the departure of a stranger from town.

Those last ones were getting more and more rare, something she was thankful for. She thinks he probably is too.

And yet, despite all the stories, all the rumours, she never manages to catch him. Sometimes she arrives in a town only to find that she was chasing the wrong rumour, sometimes she arrives to find that he had left the area a day, a week, a month before.

Her joking statement of being chasing a ghost seems to become more and more true with each day that passes and she catches not even a glimpse of Artix von Krieger.

* * *

><p><em>Vayle was fuming. Edgar had been so mean! He'd been worried about her but that was no excuse for him to have yelled at Artix like that! Artix had done nothing but help her and had brought her home safely and Edgar had yelled at him and not let either of them explain anything!<em>

_Her new wings itched somewhat uncomfortably, but she was beginning to get used to them._

_She sat down on her bed with a huff and looked at the axe she had put on her bedside table. She'd never had the chance to return it because Edgar had pulled her away and marched her home right after Artix ran off when her brother yelled at him. She could still see the hurt look on her new friend's face after Edgar had told him to stay away from her and blamed him for her wings._

_Artix had given her that axe so she could keep herself safe when he went back for the orb, but it wasn't _hers_ so she couldn't keep it. She'd return it to him tomorrow and she'd take Edgar and make him apologise for yelling like that!_

_Yeah, that was a good plan. With that in mind, she lay down in bed and tried to get to sleep. The sooner she slept, the sooner tomorrow would come and the sooner she could make sure this mess was fixed!_

_Vayle awoke to the sound of screaming._

_Her eyes snapped open and she sat up in shock. She clambered out of bed and looked out of the window, recoiling with shock at what she saw but somehow unable to look away._

_Zombies. Lots and lots of zombies, roaming the village. And a thick green fog covering everything. Even as she watched, one of the villagers – a nice man who sometimes let her have fruit from his tree when he saw her – stumbled out of his house and clutched at his throat, gasping for breath. Even as she watched, the fog swirled around him and…and…_

_And he turned into a zombie._

_She stepped back from the window slowly, one step at a time, and found her fingers curling around the handle of the axe on her bedside table._

_She lifted it slowly and held it the way she had seen Artix do when he'd been fighting off those monsters in the cave and crept to the door._

_It creaked open ominously and she padded carefully through the house, looking for any signs of her brother._

_Something moved behind her and she turned around._

_Her eyes widened and her grip on the axe tightened as sharply as the coil around her heart and the weight in her stomach settled. _

_"E…Edgar?" she asked, voice trembling._

_The zombie lurched forwards and she swung the axe with a scream._

* * *

><p><em>Pain. So much pain. How long had it been? Hours? Days? Weeks? She didn't know and her body was aching with exertion and her heart was aching with what she had seen and what she had had to do.<em>

_The image of her home going up in flames, mindless creatures that had once been friends, neighbours, strangers, milling around, was engraved into her brain and she saw it every time she closed her eyes._

_Her legs gave way. She couldn't go any farther, just couldn't run any more. She'd had to fight her way out for nothing because the monsters were going to get her now anyways._

_Footsteps approached and she shifted her grip on the axe anyways, just because she couldn't keep going, didn't mean she was going down without a fight._

_"Hello there, young lady…" said an unexpected, gentle voice. She looked up as the lady knelt down in front of her, offering a hand and a warm smile._

_"…would you like some tea?"_

* * *

><p>It had been a day since she had arrived in Falconreach, and she was preparing to leave. If Artix had left a week before and she wanted any hope of catching up with him – though she doubted she would, what with not even knowing remotely which way he <em>went<em> let alone what twists and turns he would have taken in that week – then she needed to leave as soon as possible.

"Um…excuse me, Miss?"

She turned to face the young boy who had run to catch up with her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You…" he paused to heave a deep breath, having apparently run across town to catch her. "You're looking for Artix, right?"

"Yes," she said, drawing out the word as he caught his breath.

"Why?"

She gave him a questioning look to hide her surprise, but the young boy didn't retract his question and met her eyes straight on.

"He's a friend," she said, measuring her words. "We knew each other as children but haven't seen each other in years,"

It was simple, it was short, it was the truth. It also didn't tell him any of the personal details of their past, things she would rather keep to herself for now.

And now it was her turn to ask a question.

"Why?" she asked, turning his own question back on him.

The boy grinned and straightened up, having now regained his breath.

"I needed to know you weren't some kind of lifelong rival of his or someone with a grudge against him that wanted to kill him for the death of a family member you blamed him for or something," he said. "And you aren't! So maybe I can help!"

Again, she gave him a questioning look; though this time at his choice of scenarios. A lifetime grudge because of the death of a family member? Against _Artix?_ She was relatively sure that she'd never had an imagination like that at his age, let alone scenarios like that for someone she didn't even know.

"Help?" she asked.

"Yeah," the boy said. "Artix left from the _other_ gate. He didn't say much about where he was going, but I think he was headed towards Verteroche Crossing,"

Well, that was certainly useful information.

"Thank you," she said, giving the young boy a genuine smile. "You may have just saved me a lot of time and frustration,"

She gave him a small nod, and then whirled around and started striding across the town towards the other gate.

"Oh, and tell him Ash says hi please, Miss!" came a call from behind her.

She raised a hand in acknowledgement and continued on her way.

Her hand slips into her bag and grips the handle of the axe.

She may just find him yet.

* * *

><p><strong>One of my favourite parts of AUs (reading or writing) is nods to canon. How many of those do you think you can spot in here?<strong>


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